March 11, 2026, 5 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. University of Arts Linz, Hauptplatz 8, Lecture Hall F, H8.05.03, Linz
The Chair of the History of Knowledge and the ERC project OLFAC invite you to a lecture series with the organizers Silke Felber, Freda Fiala and Julia Ostwald.
The series considers the senses as a stage and performance as a method of perception. It is based on the premise that both the senses and performance are not to be understood as clearly defined areas, but as active, porous and contested fields of practice. Based on the 2007 publication of the same name by Sally Banes and André Lepecki, their investigation updates those "critical thresholds where the physical meets the social, the somatic meets the historical, the cultural meets the biological and the imagination meets the flesh."
The senses are not neutral, they are fundamentally political. They organize what can be felt, seen and recognized. Performance, in turn, opens up a laboratory for their (re)organization. From a decidedly multi-sensory and inter-sensory perspective, we ask how cultural and artistic performances address the sensorium. How do the senses cooperate, or do they compete and oppose each other? And what hierarchies - e.g. between sight and smell, rationality and intuition, body and mind - do we still enact, often implicitly, when we perceive, create or study?
The lecture series is open to the public - all interested parties are welcome. The introductory event will be held in English, the lectures will be held in both English and German.
On March 11, 2026 the introduction by OLFAC (Silke Felber, Freda Fiala and Julia Ostwald) will take place.
March 11, 2026
Introduction by OLFAC - Silke Felber, Freda Fiala and Julia Ostwald
March 25, 2026
320 GB in a backpack - the physical aspect of digital art about glaciers
Tina Frank (Visual Communication, University of Arts Linz) &
Alexis Dworsky (Media Design, University of Arts Linz)
April 15, 2026
Dis_sensual - A crip choreographer's re-distribution of the sensible
Michael Turinsky (Artist, Vienna)
April 22, 2026
Performing Snakes in Modernity and Today
Nicole Haitzinger (Dance Studies, University of Salzburg) &
Christina Gillinger (Tanzquartier Vienna TQW)
April 29, 2026
Tasting skin. On chilis and chills
Karin Harrasser (Cultural Studies, University of Arts Linz and Director of
ifk - International Research Center for Cultural Studies)
May 6, 2026
A sense of the insoluble
bankleer - Karin Kasböck & Christoph Maria Leitner
May 13, 2026
Mimi o Sumasu - the Very Act of Listening
Miya Yoshida (Artistic Research, University of Applied Arts Vienna)
May 20, 2026
Lingering with Bass (2024, Steve McQueen)
Ulrike Hanstein (VALIE EXPORT Center, University of Arts Linz)
May 27, 2026
Olfactory Violence and the Freedom to Speak: Stink Bombs in Interwar Europe
William Tullett (Early Modern History, University of York)
June 3, 2026
Sensing the Atmospheres of Painters' Studios in Nineteenth-Century France
Erika Wicky (Olfactions, Université Grenoble Alpes)
June 10, 2026
Hee-Hawing Democracy: Somatic Articulations Beyond the Logos
Bettina Wuttig (University of Marburg)
June 17, 2026
Greetings from the Swamp
Maria Nalbantova (Artist, Sofia)
June 24, 2026
A loving ear - towards a poetic ecology of feeling
Brandon LaBelle (Independent Researcher, Berlin)
There will be a live stream. The link will be communicated to registered participants.
If you would like to participate online, please register via the following address: office.olfac@kunstuni-linz.at